When (if ever) is homework appropriate for a
foreign language class? How should it be used? Do you feel it is ever
improperly used? Should homework be given before or after the lesson is taught?
Exchange ideas with your peers and be sure to use examples to support your
opinions.
Would you want to show your students this
video? Why and why not?
I think homework
is certainly appropriate for a foreign language class. I myself don’t love having to do work outside
of class, but I know there’s a reason for it. Homework is important because you
are forced to apply what you’ve learned in class and you’re forced to do it
alone. The fact that you’re alone matters
for two reasons: one, without the help of a teacher or peers, you will quickly
realize what you do and don’t understand and what you need to work on to
improve your understanding; and two: it gives you a feel for what it is like to
apply your knowledge in the real world.
For instance, when your boss asks you to write up the pros and cons of
investing in a new wind energy business, or to write up a grant proposal for a
new project studying the effect of after-school programs on primary school
kids, you’re not going to go back to his/her office and say “How do I write an
essay that includes two sides of one issue?” or “How do I write a persuasive
essay?” You have to learn to apply your
skills during school when you can still ask a lot of questions so you’ll then
be prepared to apply them efficiently in the real world.
In a foreign
language class, applying your skills outside of class will probably mean
practicing your reading and writing skills, and hopefully your listening skills
too. (Most speaking practice is done in
class where the teacher is available as a model for pronunciation and structure
and as a resource for questions.) Reading
comprehension is a great skill to refine with homework assignments where
students have to read a passage then answer questions about it (thereby
practicing writing skills). And of
course writing can be practiced with essay or short answer assignments. Today’s technology offers relatively easy
access to listening activities, which students can then answer comprehension questions
about as well.
I think homework
is improperly used when it is not given enough thought by the instructor or
when it is too easy. I’m thinking of
what we commonly call “busywork”. There
is always something going on in class that’s challenging, and that skill should
not be omitted from the homework – on the contrary, it should probably be the
focus of the homework, even if it’s challenging to assign or grade. If Chapter 5 includes direct and indirect
objects but the homework only drills the vocabulary section with a word search,
it may be easy for everyone but it’s neither effective nor a good use of anyone’s
time.
I like the
structure we’ve been using in Spanish 401 so far, which is to have the students
read the textbook pages with the content that will be covered in the next class
for homework. This way, in the next
class they are already (or should already be) familiar with the vocabulary and
the ideas of that day’s lesson, and I get to spend less time introducing the
ideas and more time practicing the skills with them. For homework that day, in addition to being
assigned more pages to review in the textbook to be prepared for the next
lesson, they are also assigned online activities that test the things we went
over in class. (This is similar to a methodology I learned about earlier this year called Flipped Learning, which is the idea of homework in class and classwork at home; see http://flippedlearning.org/domain/46 for more info.) I like that college
students can actually be held responsible for reviewing class material ahead of
time. Although I learned about Flipped Learning from a colleague who used it in her high school biology class, this strategy would have been hard to apply in the high school Spanish classes I taught. Many of my college-prep freshmen would not have reviewed the material for homework and then would have been lost in
class.
The YouTube
video on how to make doing homework easier could definitely be helpful to
students. Even if none of those skills are relevant to them personally, I think it would be especially
valuable to younger students who have yet to become aware of their studying strengths
and weaknesses and what works best for them.
You have brought an interesting point of using "flipped learning" for homework. The idea of asking students to learn materials outside the classroom is to increase class time to practice and speak L2. Here is a little bit history of 'flipping':
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HH_PRdi87w4
I wonder if it actually works for foreign language learning; especially for beginning learners. I do believe that the use of the technology, such as voice powerpoint presentations or YouTube videos can peak students' interests and motivate them to learn materials at home if used appropriately. Students need to be trained to use videos effectively, such as taking notes and working on worksheets, etc. I'm very interested in this topic. Flipped foreign language learning and teaching would be a great topic for your term paper.
I'm glad you said that flipped learning may be harder to apply to high schoolers because I was thinking the same thing. Most of the people I went to school with hardly did any of the outside reading that they were asked to do. Sort of from what Lina says, I think if you use more fun outside teaching strategies like interactive online lessons or very amusing videos, at home teaching may be a possibility. Although I still doubt that you could run an entire semester course through flipped learning at the high school level.
ReplyDeleteI think you're exactly right about how doing individual work at home clears things up for the students and thus is very important.